How to show part of the_content?

Question

i wanna show 20 chars of the_content

i tried this but doesn't work for me .

<?php $content = '';
$content = the_content();
$count_content = strlen($content);
   if($count_content > 20 ) {
     $description = substr($content, 0,20,'UTF-8');
     echo $description ;
   }
   else {
     echo $content;
   }
?>

Answer 1

Check out the Wordpress Codex reference page for the_excerpt() as it is a built-in way of doing what you're looking to accomplish:

• http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_excerpt

EDIT: it also has an example for shortening the excerpt beyond the default length.